Bruised

by Sarah Skilton

  “Imogen. Imogen!” Hunter flies toward me out of nowhere, like he teleported off a spaceship. So he was tracking me. Again. “Get in the car,” he yells, pointing in the direction of the street. “Now.”

  I just stare at him.

  He grabs me by the elbow. “What are you doing? Are you running away?!”

  It’s almost sweet that he thinks that. He sees a girl playing hoboes, not scheming to have her legs ripped off.

  “The train already came by,” I say, my words flat and plain and logical.

  “Jesus, Imogen, you’re really scaring me,” he cries, shaking me by the shoulders and trying to make me look at him.

  I refuse to meet his eyes. I go limp instead, let my knees buckle, because it’s not my body anyway. He has to wrap his arm around my waist to keep me upright. He half pulls, half carries me, and we’re just passing the abandoned car when Hunter stops, his face contorted, and he’s about to speechify some more, when I see two squad cars pull up, lights flashing. The world spins and my eyes lose focus.

  “Hey,” sounds a male voice on the loudspeaker. “What are you kids doing?”

  Two cops get out of the car; they’re coming toward us—

  “Get down!” I tackle Hunter’s legs and slam him to the ground like a linebacker. He goes down with a thud, scraping his palms and face, and I cover him with my body.

  “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” I scream. “Don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt him, he’s my brother, don’t shoot, oh God, please don’t shoot, don’t shoot, please, please don’t hurt my brother—”

  Tears blur my vision until I don’t have eyes anymore; I just have the endless rising tide of an ocean clogging my throat and lungs, pulling me under, but I keep holding on to Hunter, making sure no part of him is accessible. They’ll have to go through me first; they can’t hurt him, not him, not Hunter …

  I kick and scream, no words anymore, just noises I didn’t know I could make, sounds I didn’t know I had in me.

  It takes three cops to pull me off him.

  I CROUCH ON THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR AT HOME, ROCKing back and forth, fists rubbing at my eyes, bluntly stabbing my cheeks, but the tears won’t stop. Mom and Dad sit on the couch, clasping hands and trembling with concern while Hunter tries to console me from a distance. No one comes near me; they don’t know what I’ll do.

  Officer Jenkins could have pressed charges against me—I walloped him pretty good—but he recognized me from the diner and told the other guys to take it easy on me.

  “I know you feel like you failed the cashier,” Hunter says quietly.

  “I didn’t fail the cashier. I failed him.”

  “Who? The gunman?”

  “He wasn’t gonna hurt her,” I moan. “The cashier knew him. She goes, ‘What the hell are you doing, Daryl?’ And he could’ve shot her, but he didn’t. He hit her with the gun, but he didn’t shoot her.”

  “He knocked her teeth out; she had to have pretty complicated surgery on her jaw.”

  They were arguing, and he was waving the gun around, and she was crying when the cops showed up, with the flashing lights and the loudspeaker. They told Daryl to come out with his hands on his head, but he wouldn’t do it. I could hear the feet of the cops, and I could see them at the windows and the doors on the opposite side from my corner under the table. I was flat on the ground and I could see it. They pointed their guns at him and told him to drop his weapon.

  He was holding the gun at his side. All he had to do was open his hand and let it go. Just open his hand and let it go, but he wouldn’t, and they crept closer.

  Drop it, drop it.

  But he wouldn’t drop it.

  Everyone was yelling at him …

  Drop it, drop it.

  Drop your weapon.

  I can’t think about this.

  I can’t say this out loud.

  I don’t want to see it in my head, ever again.

  If we stop now, I won’t have to see it.

  “They told him to drop his weapon …,” I murmur, squeezing my eyes shut.

  “Yes? And?” Hunter says.

  “I had to do something. I had to do something, because he didn’t know I was there …”

  I crawled out from under the table and stood, like a baby bird unfolding from its egg.

  Kick him, punch him, shove him from behind, I told myself, or they’re gonna kill him. Do it. Now! Do it!

  Half of my brain was screaming at me to act, and the other half was screaming Gun. My body decided on paralysis.

  Daryl turned and looked at me, the yolky whites of his eyes peeking out from his ski mask, like long-dead stars in an endless black universe.

  He lifted his gun and pointed it right at me …

  I closed my eyes, felt a warm trickle of pee down my leg. I closed my eyes and prepared to die. My eyes were closed, but I heard the words.

  Light him up.

  I don’t know if I’m talking or thinking.

  “Is that what they said? ‘Light him up’?” Mom is right by my ear. My eyes are still shut and I’m rocking and rocking on the carpet, but I feel her cool, smooth hand on my arm.

  And then they ripped him apart with bullets, and the blood splattered my face and my clothes. So wet and warm, the blood, so much of it, all over me, matted and sticky, his body a crumpled sack of skin and bones that used to be a human being with parents and friends and dreams and hopes and even though he was stupid …

  “He didn’t need to die that way. He didn’t need to die,” I moan, pounding my fists into the carpet. “They killed him because of me.”

  “Imogen, listen to me,” says Dad. “Sweetheart. It’s not your fault.”

  Dad swims into focus, sitting on the couch, and then blurs away again as I wipe the water from my eyes.

  “He wasn’t going to hurt her. Stupid, stupid, stupid …” I bash my cheek with the side of my fist and I don’t even feel it.

  Feel it. Feel it. Feel something.

  I’m not mad at myself for not attacking a man with a gun. I’m mad I didn’t prevent the cops from attacking him. I’m supposed to prevent unnecessary fights. To defend the weak. It was three against one. He was the weak one. He was the weak one.

  “He wasn’t gonna shoot her,” I repeat.

  “But you don’t know that for sure—”

  “Why did she know his name, then? Why did she call him Daryl? Maybe they planned it together, and then she changed her mind. If I’d just been brave, I could have kicked his legs out, prevented the whole thing. But I froze up, and they killed him.”

  “He pointed a gun at you!”

  I should’ve stayed under the table. I was scared they were going to kill him, and then I made it so they had to kill him. Stupid fucking idiot.

  “He was waving the gun at everyone, not just you. They didn’t have a choice,” Hunter insists.

  “But if I’d done something before they arrived …” I melt into the carpet, sobbing and clutching it. “I would’ve won! Do you understand that? He didn’t know I was there.”

  Mom and Dad try to get me to go upstairs and get into bed, but I can’t get up. The floor wants me, and I feel safe here, low to the ground, hidden.

  It’s much better than my room, which is empty and lifeless.

  Every day it reminds me I’m not who I thought I was; my identity is as blank as the walls.

  I wish I were five years old and Dad were strong again, so he could carry me up anyway and tuck me in.

  I stay on the floor, and Mom covers me with blankets and positions a pillow softly under my head.

  HUNTER’S GOT A BANDAGE ON HIS CHEEK FROM WHERE I slammed him to the ground, and he picks at it obsessively, peeling and resealing the tape, as he drives me to school a day later.

  There goes that male-modeling career, I think, because if I don’t, I’ll have to wonder, how can he stand it? How can he stand having a coward for a sister?

  Ricky waits for me outside Mrs. H.’s at the usual time.

 
“Ready to go in?” he asks.

  “Does she know you’re out here?”

  “Not yet. She’s on the phone.”

  “Come with me.” I tug on his sleeve, lead him around the corner.

  “What’s up?” he says, placing his hand against the wall above my head. “Are you okay?”

  “I remembered some things a couple nights ago.”

  “Is that why you weren’t here yesterday?”

  I nod. “It was bad.”

  He moves to block me off from the rest of the hallway, protecting me from any scrutiny. Leans down and asks softly, “How bad?”

  Walking around the train tracks in the middle of the night bad. Scaring the hell out of my family bad.

  “Hold my hand for a moment?” I ask.

  “As long as you want.”

  We stand there silently. I feel my fake heart rate slow down. If I were hooked up to a monitor, I’m certain it would prove the effect he has on me, how my entire being relaxes.

  “Should we go in?” Ricky says after a minute.

  I take a deep breath. “Yeah.”

  “Let’s pretend we’re in couples counseling.” He smiles at me, testing the waters. I smile back.

  “He never asks for directions.”

  “Nag, nag, nag.”

  Ricky squeezes my hand and we round the corner. I’m sad when he lets go, but we can’t let Mrs. H. see us that way. She probably wouldn’t approve.

  “What made you choose Tae Kwon Do?” Mrs. Hamilton asks. “What drew you to it?”

  “Hunter and I enrolled at the same time, but he dropped out because he got bored practicing by himself. He likes team sports better. When he left, I realized it was my best chance to outshine him at something. I had to get so amazing, so fast, that he would never want to return.”

  “So you did it because you wanted to be better than Hunter at something?”

  “No, I wanted to learn how to take care of myself. I liked the idea of having honor, of behaving a certain way no matter what, of following the Children’s Home Rules.”

  Bad answer, because now she has a homework assignment for me. As if I don’t have enough going on in my regular classes.

  “Is there any reason you can’t still live your life according to those precepts?” she wonders.

  “What precepts?”

  “The Children’s Home Rules.”

  I snort. “Those are for third graders.”

  “So they don’t apply to you anymore?”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Is there any reason you can’t live your life that way?”

  “Other than the fact that it’s lame?” I say.

  She waits.

  “I guess not,” I mutter.

  “I want you to find your old sheet of Children’s Home Rules and follow them for the next month and see how you feel.”

  I roll my eyes. “Does Ricky have to follow them, too?”

  “Ricky has a different assignment.”

  But neither of them will tell me what it is.

  “Greetings, Mother!” I say sarcastically when I walk through the front door. “Greetings, Father!”

  No one responds.

  This is beyond stupid.

  “Greetings, family,” I scream.

  “What are you doing?” calls Hunter from upstairs.

  “Children’s Home Rule number one: Children will greet their parents when they come home, and say good-bye to them when they leave.”

  “Oh my God, are you like, reverting?”

  “Greetings, Brother.”

  A pause.

  “Greetings, Sister.”

  The next morning I wake up with a fever and a stuffy nose. It’s a relief. If I’m sick, I can stay in bed. I don’t have to pretend to pay attention in class. I can fall even further behind without being blamed for it. I can rest.

  I wish Mom would sit in my desk chair by the bed and read to me. Even Bleak House would be okay; maybe if someone else read it to me I’d understand it better. But she just sort of laughs when I suggest this and reheats some Campbell’s in a can. I feel lonely on the second floor by myself all day. The intercom connects us, but it’s not the same.

  Ricky comes over after school with tortilla soup: his grandmother’s. It’s the best soup I’ve ever had. I never want to touch the canned stuff again.

  By Sunday, I’ve pretty much kicked my cold, so Ricky shows up again and we practice for a while in the garage. We’re working on elbow slams and sidekicks.

  It’s our longest workout yet. An hour in, I offer to get us water from the house, and when I return he’s standing against the wall, his back to the mirror, still breathing hard. I know it’s from exercising, but it feels … sexy to see him that way, his chest expanding and deflating as he looks over and smiles at me.

  He wipes the sweat off his brow with the bottom of his T-shirt, and I catch a sweet little glimpse of his stomach, the line of skin between his shirt and his boxers.

  The line of skin is the perfect shape to trace with my finger. My nonheart flips double-time at this thought.

  I hand him his bottle of water, and our fingers touch. We’re close enough that I can feel the warmth pouring off his skin. His sweat smells clean, like bread, and I love that our bodies are the same level of damp and warm.

  “You gonna let go of that?” he teases, and I blush, releasing the bottle and his hand.

  We chug our waters like it’s a contest, and I watch his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and I want, more than anything, to know what he tastes like there, and not just there but on the side of his neck, right where it meets his shoulder, and I’m looking at his mouth, his perfect, full lips, and wondering what it would be like to stop thinking about this and do something about it, to fall into good emotions instead of bad ones, and he must be wondering the same thing because he takes my hands in his, making me spill and drop my water bottle, and he pulls me in and we’re doing just that—kissing, hard, our mouths coming together and apart.

  We alternate top and bottom lips; we can’t decide which way to kiss because they’re both so good and there’s so much we want to do, and the air vibrates between us, the places we’re not touching. Every second slows down until all I feel is the pulse in my neck quivering like hummingbird wings, so fast I need to gasp.

  He waits till I’m practically begging before gliding his tongue against mine. The cold water chilling both our tongues makes a delicious contrast to the heat of our skin.

  We keep kissing, and I wrap my arms tightly around his neck. I glance in the mirror at the hundreds of other Imogens who do the same.

  And then I close my eyes.

  Ricky left two hours ago, but I’m still high from our kiss. I run my tongue over my lips, which feel puffy, like shiny balloons.

  I fantasize about calling Shelly, but I call Hannah instead.

  She squeals when I tell her what happened. Then she says, “Hang on, what’s that noise I hear in the distance?”

  “What noise?”

  “Oh, just the peal of wedding bells. Can’t you hear it?”

  “What? No! I’m just hoping he couldn’t tell that was my first kiss.”

  Hannah channels her inner DJ and goes into lecture mode. “If you’d gone for it on our triple date this summer, you wouldn’t be worried. You’d already have a kissing session under your belt.”

  “I wasn’t going to use someone for practice,” I protest.

  “We don’t all meet our future husbands the first time out.

  Sometimes you can just have fun; it doesn’t always have to mean something.”

  “I want it to mean something, or why do it?”

  “Okay, it should mean something,” she relents, “but it doesn’t have to mean everything.”

  “You realize who you sound like right now, don’t you?” I grumble.

  “Who?”

  “My dumbass brother.”

  “I take it all back,” she laughs. “This conversation never happene
d. So. Tell me what you like best about Ricky.”

  “It’s not his looks, even though he’s really hot. It’s more like a feeling.” I think of his eyes, the flecks of gold like a lantern leading me through the dark. I think of sunsets and roasting marshmallows around a fire, the longing I felt as a kid on camping trips, wishing the night would never have to end.

  RICKY AND I SHOW UP TO COUNSELING WITH KLEENEX boxes in tow.

  “You’re both sick?” Mrs. Hamilton says.

  “Isn’t it a nutty coincidence?” I say, looking right at Ricky, dabbing my lips slowly with a tissue and daring him to hold my gaze. “Can you even believe it? What are the odds?”

  Ricky’s eyes blow up like puffer fishes and his foot jumps, tapping loudly on the floor.

  Mrs. Hamilton turns to him. “Something to add?”

  “If she finds out, there’s no way she’ll let us continue,” Ricky chastises me after counseling.

  “Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. I won’t joke around anymore. But you should’ve seen your face.” I giggle.

  “I was scared you were gonna lick your lips like Catwoman or something.”

  “Are we working out today?”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t even breathe.”

  “I’m so sorry for getting you sick.”

  He straightens up, affects a mock military voice. “I knew the risks. I volunteered for the mission.”

  “Does your grandma have any of that amazing soup left?”

  “Come over after school and find out.”

  I haven’t been to Ricky’s place since our date. I’d rather spend the afternoon working out in the garage, but I can’t exactly force him to exercise when he’s fighting off the very cold I gave to him.

  For the first twenty minutes after we arrive, Ricky does chores. He collects the garbage and recycling and sets them out on the street for pickup tomorrow. Then he sweeps the kitchen floor. I offer to help because it seems weird sitting at the table drinking a ginger ale while he works, but he tells me he’s almost done, and then he takes my hand and leads me to the living room.